Sarah Doran – Reader, Writer and Pop Culture enthusiast

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Ireland’s Ryan Dolan survives the Eurovision Semi Final

Good evening Malmo, Dublin calling: Get ready to hear those words this weekend, because Ireland’s Ryan Dolan has qualified for the Grand Final of the 58th Eurovision Song Contest.

Sweden’s Little Mermaid rose from the floor like a Nordic Celia Holman-Lee, 16 countries sang (if you could call some of what we heard actual singing), our Ryan gave it socks (sounding a million times better than he had on The Late Late thanks to the backing singers having their volume turned down a tad) and we all sat there for a few minutes thinking that we might just stand a chance this year. Then it dawned on us, we think the same thing every year. Except the time we sent Dustin. We knew that wasn’t going anywhere.

Anyway, Ryan was one of 10 acts, including hot favourites Denmark, to qualify from tonight’s semi-final, meaning we’ll see him back on the stage this Saturday night. There’s a slight change of plan this year, in that the final running order won’t be decided until everyone has qualified, so we’re not quite sure where Ryan will fall in the running order exactly. What we do know, however, is that he will be performing during the second half of the show. We’d like to think that’s good news, given that a lot of the songs at the very beginning are easily forgotten.

We have to hand it to the Swedes though, they gave us one hell of an opening, with a choir of angelic Nordic children belting out last year’s winner, Euphoria, with the aid of Loreen. We couldn’t tell if she was wearing shoes or not this time around though. The interval act, however, left much to be desired. We think Twitter’s @talkpiece summed it up best with ‘Orcs on Ice’. And as for that attempt at scripted comedy? The less said the better.

At least we can rest easy now that we’ve qualified, and get ready for another round of Semi Final madness on Thursday night.